Friday, September 21, 2012

Reese Witherspoon Lists Los Angeles Lot, Too

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While celebrity property gossips around the globe went hog wild this week over Oscar-winning movie star and producer Reese Witherspoon putting Libbey Ranch—her historic and published ranch in Ojai, CA—up for sale with a $10,000,000 asking price, a kindly informant we'll call Mandy Canyon whispered to Your Mama that she also (but much more quietly) made a now-vacant parcel in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles available as an off-market listing with a $7,995,000 price tag.

Whatever obviously now scuttled plans Miz Witherspoon and her ladder-climbing talent agent husband Jim Toth had for the nearly flat 2.53 acre estate clearly involved the complete removal of an existing 7 bedroom and 9 bathroom Spanish-style residence as well as that of the swimming pool, stables, riding ring and whatever other structures may have been on the property.

What do the real estate experts and otherwise opinionated think? Even though she only bought it just over two years ago is Miz Witherspoon's bucolic spread in Mandeville Canyon worth a million dollars more now that the existing structures have been razed and removed?

Of course Your Mama don't know a pea pod from a zoot suit but it seems to us Mister and Missus Toth are in the mood to shake up their real estate portfolio. Does this mean we may see the happy and procreating couple list her long-time residence in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles? What about the almost 6,500 square foot, quoin-cornered and mansard roofed mini-mansion she owns in her native Nashville? Will that property go up on the block, too? We'll just have to wait and see, won't we children?

Hey Mama,I checked with my birf mama, and shes thinkin the drive was just wide enough for us to get us a single wide trailer up onto that lot. We might be able to do a double wide since they drive em up in two pieces. Anyhoo, whichever is picked, it will leave us lots of room for cookouts and horseback ridin (if Bristol comes up on the weekend). Stop by when we get settled. Luv, Stump Palin

Does her new kid have anything to do with this? And when will it appear? A short time ago it threatened to appear too soon, now one wonders if it will arrive at all. She always seemed so focused and sensible. All this upheaval is unsettling.

What the US needs badly: a mansion tax of the sort being proposed in the UK.A mansion tax is easier to administer than a land tax, which he says in practice would have to replace council tax all together. Most models suggest that it could run at an annual rate 1 or 2% of the value of a property above a threshold of £1-2m. If it was 2% above £1m and a property was worth £2m, the person would pay £20,000 a year.*************I'd make it progressive up to say 10% on houses or condos valued at over 10 million. It could be left to states to imposed depending on need. The nifty thing about it is that you can't move a house somewhere else to escape tax. Think how much California could bring in just from Bel Air alone. It might put CA on the road to solvency and would sop up a lot of the excess money some of these pretty dingbats get for nothing but their looks.

Settle down, hunny. That was not an insult. In what world do you live in that climbing the professional ladder is a bad thing? Look up his resume on the internets. He started as a trainee and now he's a big agent at CAA. That's an ambitious ladder climber.

As a long time resident of the street the lot is on, I can honestly say I am horrified at the razing of one of the few horse properties in the City of Los Angeles!!! I find it laughable that they took everything down and are asking more than what their purchase price is!

I Used to teach riding lessons on the canyon next to ours and although my property is zoned for horses, it is just not feasible or safe to ride my horses down the street (about 1.25 miles) to get to the riding facility… Especially since it is a relatively narrow road without a sidewalk or a bike lane… I say bike lane because the cyclists are so incredibly rude and narcissistic! They totally flaunt the law and blow through the stop signs and take up the whole road! Common courtesy doesn't exist!

At any rate, I am really disappointed that she razed the property… What a waste, especially since it had an arena!